Key Points

• Defendants Haven’t Let Up on Class Certification Challenges. Our comprehensive analysis of 126 securities class action proceedings shows defendants are challenging class certification and price impact more aggressively than ever. Price impact challenges have more than doubled since Goldman I, jumping from 32% before 2021 to 75% in the most recent year.
• Plaintiffs’ Initial Struggles Have Given Way to a Remarkable Recovery. While defendants initially gained significant ground—with plaintiff success rates plummeting from 86% pre-Goldman I to just 63% in the year following Goldman II—the tide has dramatically turned. In the past year, plaintiffs achieved an 88% success rate in obtaining full class certification, exceeding even pre-Goldman levels.
• The Goldman Advantage May Be More Limited Than Expected. Despite widespread speculation that the Goldman decisions fundamentally shifted the playing field in defendants’ favor, our data suggests the long-term impact may be more nuanced. The recent rebound in plaintiff success rates indicates that courts and plaintiffs may be adapting to the new legal landscape more effectively than initially anticipated.

Background

Securities class actions face greater court scrutiny at the class certification stage in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2021 Goldman decision (“Goldman I”) and the Second Circuit’s ensuing decision to decertify the class (“Goldman II”) in August 2023.¹

In Goldman I, the Supreme Court ruled that, when the alleged misrepresentation is generic but the corrective disclosure is specific, “it is less likely that the specific disclosure actually corrected the generic misrepresentation, which means that there is less reason to infer front-end price inflation—that is, price impact—from the back-end price drop.”²  More sweepingly, it stated that courts assessing price impact “‘should be open to all probative evidence on that question—qualitative as well as quantitative—aided by a good dose of common sense.’ That is so regardless of whether the evidence is also relevant to a merits question like materiality.”³

Applying and operationalizing Goldman I, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decertified the class in Goldman, citing a meaningful mismatch in genericness between the alleged misstatements and the corrective disclosures, setting a potentially important precedent.

In earlier publications, Fideres found that Goldman I and Goldman II both noticeably impacted defendants’ class certification strategies.⁴   We found that defendants increasingly challenged price impact in class certification proceedings following Goldman I and Goldman II.

Empirical Results

Fideres identified a sample of 126 plaintiff motions for class certification in 10b5 matters between June 30, 2020 (one year prior to the Supreme Court ruling) and June 30, 2025. For each such class certification proceeding, we determined whether defendant filed an opposition, and if so, whether the filing challenged price impact.

Figure 1 below summarizes our results. Between the 2021 Goldman I and 2023 Goldman II decisions, defendants challenged price impact in 48% of class certification proceedings—up from 32% before the 2021 Supreme Court ruling. In the year following Goldman II, this ratio increased further to 71%. At 75%, the most recent year is consistent with this higher intensity of defendant challenges to price impact.

Figure 1: Fraction of Class Certification Proceedings where Defendants Challenged Price Impact

Notes: Time periods reflect the date of plaintiffs’ first motion for class certification. Cases are excluded if i) defendants did not file a motion in opposition by June 30, 2025; or ii) they have sealed or significantly redacted motions. Source: Docket Alarm, Fideres Analysis.

 Figure 2: Plaintiffs’ Class Certification Success Rate

Notes: We count plaintiff as successful if the court certifies plaintiff’s motion for class certification in full. Time periods reflect the date of defendant’s first motion in opposition of class certification. Cases are excluded if they i) were unresolved as of June 30, 2025; or ii) settled during class certification proceedings; or iii) had sealed or significantly redacted motions. Source: Docket Alarm, Fideres Analysis.

It has been widely speculated that Goldman has given an advantage to defendants. To assess this, we examine class certification decisions in cases that were challenged by defendants and resolved in court by June 30, 2025.⁵

Figure 2 illustrates the results of this analysis. Among the motions for class certification that were challenged by defendants in the year preceding Goldman I (June 30, 2020 – June 24, 2021), 86% were fully certified in court. In the year following Goldman II (August 10, 2023 – June 30, 2024), only 63% were fully certified. The trend was similar for the subset of cases where defendants challenged price impact.

This, it seems, confirms that Goldman favored defendants. Over the past year (July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025), however, we find that plaintiffs’ success rate rebounded to 88%, higher even than before Goldman I.

We will continue to monitor these developments and provide further updates in our next publication.

¹ Goldman Sachs Grp. v. Ark. Tchr. Ret. Sys. (Goldman I), 594 U.S. 113, 117 (2021); Ark. Tchr. Ret. Sys. v. Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc. (Goldman II), 77 F.4th 74 (2d Cir. 2023).

² Goldman I at 123.

³ Goldman I at 122 (quoting In re Allstate Corp. Sec. Litig., 966 F.3d 595, 613 n.6 (7th Cir. 2020)).

⁴ See, https://fideres.com/after-goldman-trouble-getting-to-class/ and https://fideres.com/goldman-three-years-on/. See also, Axelson, P. & Cain, M. (2025, forthcoming). What is Price Impact? How the Goldman Decisions are Reshaping Shareholder Class Actions. Berkley Business Law Journal.

⁵ We thus exclude class certification proceedings that were unresolved as of June 30, 2025 as well as cases that settled during the class certification stage.